Cheerful and Colorful Paintings

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Nicholas Simmons Workshop ~ Friday, June 13, 2008 ~ Small Painting

Nancy's Small Painting, Day 5, Quarter Sheet

Day 5 could have been a real downer if there had not been talk about Nicholas Simmons making a return trip to TX. for another workshop. We began by seeing a demo of the Da Vinci liquid acrylics with washes beginning at the top for the sky with some overlap of colors. Nick says put it down and leave it alone. Easier said than done and I may have to have my hands restrained to follow this rule. We painted several trying to perfect our technique. We added a little splatter, a few people and some birds. They were supposed to be sketchy people but he found some arms on my figures. Later in the afternoon, Nick gave a demo with his favorite well worn brush and painted with gesso and later some trees with branches that wrap around with a razor blade. We should try that at home with some supervision looks like to me!Nick had a drawing for the painting on Friday and lucky Teta had the winning number.

I would like to share a photo resizing site especially for those times when, for example, you're instructed to send in a picture no wider than 100 px. Well, who knows what that is? Here is the site for you at Photosize and the best part, it's free.My friend, Betty Taylor, from Canvas by Canvas has shared two great tools with me. One from Microsoft for XP called Power Tools when added to your computer you can right click and resize photos immediately. Scroll down to Image Resizer.The other (and I haven't used it yet but it sounds promising) lets you upload a photo and create large poster size images at Block Posters. Something you could use taking a Nick workshop.

I will post a few of the beach scenes in the slide show below. In some of the images you will see that is masking tape around the edges. I know it looks a little weird in the photos but Nick likes to use it to get a little more buckling action of the paper and all this time we've been told to stretch that paper flat!! Nick doesn't follow all the watercolor rules as you may have figured out with talk of loving blooms and crawl backs.Hurry back to Texas, Nick and until then we'll catch you online. Thanks again to Artists' Showplace for hosting this workshop.Mouse over for captions.

2 comments:

Thanks for posting all of this, Nancy!! It was a blast to finally meet you, and I hope that your facility with the blog/internet will inspire some of the others to get their work out there and seen. As for restraining the hands ---I noticed a difference with you in that dept. over the week, and you also had something really good in every painting. I appreciate all of the good words, and a positive workshop from you is a high compliment....i can't think of anyone who has participated in as many as you have, with so many name artists. I hope I'll see you there again, and I will surprise you with that sandwich when you least expect it! your watercolor tovarish, Nick

Hello again, NickI had to look up tovarish (comrade) before I could answer you. I really enjoy blogging and it does encourage you to produce some work and you meet really great people. Your watercolor compadre, Nancy